By the time you have moved on to an in person interview as a job candidate, you have already cleared several hurdles, and you already know that the client is interested enough in you to talk in person. If you are interested in working for the client, you need to do everything possible to maximize that face-to-face interview and give yourself the best possible chance of becoming the selected candidate for the job.
However, having reached this point, you now have to prepare for the most stressful part of the process by far, because you will be in the firing line, and you’ll have to come up with solid answers to questions spontaneously. Some people are very good at this, while others have difficulty with it because they’re so stressed out, or perhaps just because they’re not particularly good at thinking on their feet.
Regardless of how good you may or not be during personal interviews, the following tips may be of real value in helping you to secure the position you want by maximizing your in-person interview.
Know When to end an in Person Interview
If you’re one of those people who doesn’t feel comfortable engaging in long-running conversation, and you prefer to give short, succinct answers, that’s probably the best way to go in a job interview. There will be times, of course, when an interviewer asks you to tell a little about yourself, and, in those cases, you are expected to extend your response somewhat.
However, the best policy is to develop a sense of when it’s time to break it off and stop rambling. Studies have shown that an interviewer will have lost significant interest in what you’re saying after about 90 seconds worth of talk, and the reduction of interest begins much sooner than that.
For sure, you’ll notice that you have an interviewer’s full attention at the outset of your answer to a question, but after about 10 or 15 seconds the concentration level will begin to fade a little. By the time 60 seconds have elapsed, less than half an interviewer’s attention is focused on what you’re saying, and they are probably already thinking about the next question to be asked.
When as much as 90 seconds have elapsed on any response that you might be giving, no matter what it pertains to, you will have almost completely lost the attention of your interviewer. You should have stopped well before reaching this point because the entire last half of your conversation was lost anyway.
To prevent this from happening, it’s a good idea to practice responses to predictable questions before the interview, and when you see that a more involved answer is necessary, give additional relevant information without letting the talk go too long.
Don’t get Hung up on Salary
You should never walk into an interview with the idea that you’re going to start talking about compensation, benefits, and working hours. A much better approach would be to show the interviewer why you are the best candidate for the job and to sell yourself in a manner that will convince your interviewer of that so that they will want to make you an offer.
If things progress to the point where you do receive a job offer, that’s soon enough to start negotiating about salary and benefits. For the most part, you shouldn’t even have to bring the subject up at all during a face-to-face interview, because your recruiter will have already determined through talks with the client that their salary range is in your ballpark anyway.
It’s natural to think about compensation and about what the hours and benefits might be, but save the talk about salary and hours for some other time, when you know you’re the candidate the company wants to hire.
Know Your Own History
If you are a lawyer interviewing at a legal firm, you should review your case history and be very familiar with the details of the prominent cases you’ve litigated. If you are asked about any of these during an in person interview, and you are unable to supply specifics about the case that you supposedly worked on, it may very well come across as an exaggeration or padding of your case history. To avoid having anything like this happen, make sure you review everything that you’ve worked on of any significance so that you can recite details on demand.
Have Some Relevant Questions Prepared
Everyone who walks into an in person interview is aware of the fact that at some point an interviewer will ask whether you have any questions for them and that you should prepare some worthwhile questions. But don’t settle for questions that are just fluff and have no real interest or relevance to your interviewer.
Try to think up some intriguing questions that you might legitimately want to be answered. This might be about other employees at the organization, about the potential for upward mobility, or about future objectives for the law firm. The point is, you should try and show the interviewer that you are serious about this job, that you took the time to think of some meaningful questions about the company. With these tips in mind, you should be well prepared for whatever you will be facing during an in person interview.